latest detailed report by city and demographics here.<\/a><\/p>\nHospitals continue to be overrun with COVID patients, with only 650 available beds — including 48 intensive-care unit beds — available as of Monday at the 70 “911-receiving” medial centers. But officials expressed some casual optimism at a leveling-off of new hospital admissions in recent days.<\/p>\n
According to the state, there were 7,926 COVID patients in L.A. County hospitals as of Monday, including 1,724 in intensive care. Last week, the overall number topped 8,000. Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday that over the past two weeks, the number of people hospitalized increased 6% over the last 14 days, “among the smallest increases we’ve seen over a two-week period in some time.”<\/p>\n
“It’s just a point of some optimism, a little bit of light,” Newsom said, while also warning that another jump in hospitalizations is still possible given the recent winter holidays.<\/p>\n
Los Angeles County Health Services Director Dr. Christina Ghaly also noted that hospitalization numbers appear to have “stabilized” following dramatic surges in recent weeks, but the overcrowding in hospitals still hasn’t been alleviated. She noted that in the four county-operated hospitals, more than half of all admitted patients are being treated for COVID, and more than 75% of ICU patients have the coronavirus. She said those numbers are similar for other hospitals countywide.<\/p>\n
“We still have patients who are being boarded in the emergency departments and we still have our clinical care teams caring for more patients than what they would under normal circumstances,” Ghaly said.<\/p>\n
“… There remains staffing shortages countywide at all hospitals at health care fadcilities, and we are still very much in the midst of this deadly surge,” she said. “We’re watching the data very carefully over the next couple of days, as this is the time we would anticipate beginning to see the surge in patients from the recent Christmas and New Year’s holidays.”<\/p>\n
County Supervisor Hilda Solis– again urging residents to adhere to infection-control measures such as wearing masks and staying home as much as possible — offered a grim reminder of the continuing severity of the pandemic, noting the pain of people who die from COVID in a hospital, separated from loved ones.<\/p>\n
“Dying from COVID in the hospital means dying alone,” Solis said. “… Families are sharing their final goodbyes on tablets and mobile phones.”<\/p>\n
Solis said she’s heard stories from health care workers about such conversations, saying they often include children or younger relatives apologizing to parents or grandparents from bringing COVID into their homes.<\/p>\n
“These apologies are some of the last words that loved ones will ever hear as they die alone,” Solis said. “Please don’t let this be your family. Don’t let this be your parents or grandparents.”<\/p>\n
About 5 million people have been tested for COVID-19 in the county since the pandemic began, with 18% testing positive.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LOS ANGELES – Nearly one year into the COVID-19 pandemic and with Los Angeles County pushing closer to the milestone of 1 million cases, health officials announced plans Monday to dramatically ramp up vaccinations by establishing five large sites capable of administering up to 5,000 doses daily. The county already has dozens of vaccination sites […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":98519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1497,15,1496],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98950"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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LOS ANGELES – Nearly one year into the COVID-19 pandemic and with Los Angeles County pushing closer to the milestone of 1 million cases, health officials announced plans Monday to dramatically ramp up vaccinations by establishing five large sites capable of administering up to 5,000 doses daily.<\/p>\n